[[Foreign function interface]], or FFI, is a common name for a facility in a programming language (especially a high-level one that does not usually work in terms of pointers, raw structure layout, etc.) to invoke functions and access data structures defined using another one (especially [[C]]).

The term is commonly used in [[Common Lisp]] and [[Haskell]].

==Relevant tasks==

Functions

• [[Call foreign language function]] ** [[Call function in shared library]] (a special case)
• [[Use another language to call a function]]

Data structures/memory access

• [[Address Operations]]
• Data Representation ** [[Data Representation - Controlling Fields in a Structure|Controlling Fields in a Structure]] ** [[Data Representation - Getting the Size|Getting the Size]] ** [[Data Representation - Specifying Minimum Size|Specifying Minimum Size]]
• [[Host Introspection]]

==See also==

• [[wp:Foreign function interface|“Foreign function interface” at Wikipedia]]

[[Category:Encyclopedia]]